DIY Vivo NEX S with transparent back: Show off that elevating selfie cam

We know “JerryRigEverything” for basically torturing popular smartphones to see if they are durable or not. But if you follow his channel, you would also know that he has a thing for smartphones with clear glass back covers. There aren’t a lot of those out in the market today, the HTC U12 Plus aside. So our favorite teardown specialist actually does his transparent phones DIY style. You may want to show off that high tech elevating camera on the Vivo NEX S – here’s how to do it.

First up, you should remember that the Vivo NEX S has a mechanized elevating selfie cam because the China-based company has chosen to cover the whole front of the phone with display. They didn’t decide to put in a notch either, so there’s nothing to break up that gorgeous display. Sadly, there’s no notch to put the selfie cam on, so they decided to design this thingamajig, and it does look nice. It would be nicer though – as per JerryRigEverything – if we could see that beautifully-designed mechanism through a clear back. See the video below.

If you want to try this, remember that you might need some DIY expertise under your belt. The back panel is glass, and it will break given the right (wrong?) amount of pressure. You’d need to heat up the back to let the adhesive soften so that you can carefully pry off the glass back cover.

After that, you’d need to peel off the adhesive cover off the glass back cover. Fortunately, it is just adhesive, and it will peel off without needing any other substance to encourage it. Far cry from Samsung’s glass backs – those need some other chemicals so that the color on the glass could be wiped away.

From the durability test that we talked about yesterday, we found that the Vivo NEX S’s selfie camera mechanism was surprisingly sturdy. In this video, you see why it is strong. There is a heavy screw that acts as the rail for the elevating mechanism, plus some strong springs to protect the mechanism from being pushed down.

The end product is a Vivo NEX S with a transparent back, and you can clearly see the selfie camera mechanism working. But the industrial look might be a tad bit garish for some. Other people will like it, though. How about you? Would you DIY your Vivo NEX S to look like this?